CLOAK: Queer Science, Fashion & Photography.

In a field in which recent research reveals many professionals remain closeted, we asked a dozen LGBTQI+ scientists to share their stories with UTS fashion designers. The designers then transformed discarded lab coats into new garments responding to the scientists’ queer histories.

This cross-disciplinary project spotlights diversity in science through fashion, photography and video performance. I’ve created a new video work and photographs that capture the results of this sustainable co-design experiment against the backdrops of the UTS Fashion Lab and the University of Sydney’s School of Chemistry.

CLOAK: Queer Science, Fashion & Photography is presented in partnership with Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC), and the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney and the Intersectional Design Research Cluster and UTS Fashion & Textiles, School of Design, UTS.

CLOAK is presented as part of Sydney WorldPride Pride Amplified.

Cherine Fahd, Play Proximus (2021), HD video, 10:37. Courtesy the artist. Commissioned by the Sydney Opera House for Art Assembly, with support from our Corporate Partners and Donors as part of New Work Now, project donors and the ARROW Collective.An articulation of touch and intimacy, artist Cherine Fahd’s, Play Proximus documents the 50 public performances of Fahd’s participatory artwork, A Proxy for One Thousand Eyes performed as part of ANTIDOTE at Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room. Transforming these performances into 12 minutes of tender imagery, Play Proximus is a document of connection, embrace and yearning -- continuing the artist’s interest in portraiture, documentation and performance.

Whispers in the Library was a weekly performance held over August and September 2020 by artist, academic and writer Cherine Fahd(External link), Director of Photography at UTS. Cherine holds a doctorate (PhD) from Monash University, Melbourne and her work has been exhibited and collected by major public institutions in Australia and internationally. Most recently, Cherine was selected for The National 2019: New Australian Art and awarded a residency at The Clothing Store, both through Carriageworks.

Whispers in the Library responded to the scholarly and contemplative environment of the UTS Reading Room. The artist, Cherine Fahd, inhabited a designated desk space to annotate her musings on love, fear, and life. Visitors were invited to take a reflection that speaks to them, insert it into a Library book, and return it to circulation until it eventually finds its receiver.

In a time of increased estrangement from one another, emphasised by the past months of isolation, it sometimes helps to be reminded of our shared existence and connectivity. Cherine’s performance sought to provoke these reminders by creating moments of connection and recognition between us. Moments of compassion in which a person carefully selects a special thought for a stranger. Moments of warmth in which the unbeknownst reader finds a message of love or care. These potential moments will circulate through time and collection, until forces of fate connect message to receiver - a tangible message, considered and handwritten; an anonymous keepsake, carefully inserted into a knowing book.